A Duplex Bungalow in Paducah, Kentucky

In 1935, the economy of Paducah, Kentucky, hummed along – and if there was a soundtrack playing in the background, it would have been the noise of train engines. The Illinois Central Railroad operated one of the nation’s largest locomotive repair shops in Paducah, spread out over 110 acres on the south side of Kentucky Avenue. Hicks and Mildred Yarbrough, both natives of Mississippi, could walk to their jobs from their home on Broadway Street, just north of the railroad shops.* So could Marvin Curd and Andrew and Bertha Carlson – along with Hicks and Mildred, they were all residents of a duplex bungalow built between 1922 and 1924.**

The duplex bungalow, 1308 Broadway, Paducah, Kentucky.

If you follow Gardens to Gables on social media, you’ll know I have a soft spot for bungalows. The simplicity of the form proved popular in the first few decades of the 20th century, especially after the excesses of some Victorian-era architectural styles. But this Paducah bungalow thrilled me with a previously unseen characteristic: two entry doors, set diagonally into the facade, facing one another.

A two front door bungalow in Taylor County, Kentucky.

This is not to say that the two front door bungalow is a new form to me – nope, what I’ve sometimes called a “cumberbow” (combining the words Cumberland and bungalow) pops up all over rural Kentucky. But I don’t want to digress down that path – you can see what I’m talking about in the above photo. Window/door/door/window – a straightforward arrangement, but without that clever cant of the two doors.***

The two front doors of the Paducah duplex.

The announcement that Sears Roebuck Company filed for bankruptcy this week got me to wondering about their house designs between 1908 and 1940, and whether they included any duplex models. During that time period, Sears sold around 70,000 “kit homes” in more than 370 designs – and some of those were indeed “income bungalows.”

The Manchester model from Sears Roebuck Company.

Many of these houses appear, from the facade, to be single family homes – but on the interior, house two families.

The Lakeland model from Sears Roebuck Company.

The Lakeland model, shown above, isn’t a bungalow, but another example of a multi-family design offered by Sears. The design recalled the asymmetry popular in the late 19th century, and offered 1,400 square feet in each unit.

The “California” model by from 101 Modern Homes by Standard Homes Company, 1923.

Neither one of these designs included two front doors, so I widened my scope to look at other mail-order house companies – and there were many operating in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. The California model by the Standard Homes Company is an attractive shingled bungalow with a recessed central bay featuring two entry doors. Unlike the Paducah house, however, the doors are solidly side-by-side.

The Edwards, circa 1925, from the J.C. Simpson Lumber Company brochure.

The Edwards design (above), despite being two stories and a bit large to be called a bungalow, has a Craftsman style influence, but again lacks the diagonally positioned front doors.

I didn’t expect to find the exact design in just an hour of poking around my bookshelf and the Internet, but it is clear that despite America’s fixation on the single family house, companies were producing designs for duplex houses.

A section of the 1937 Sanborn map showing the duplex bungalow at 1308 Broadway.

Deed research on the Paducah bungalow might turn up the builder’s name, and additional primary research might provide some clues as to the origins of the design.

The duplex is now part of the 1895 Washington Hotel, a bed and breakfast in downtown Paducah – and I spent the night there earlier this month! I wasn’t able to figure out the original floor plan of the 1.5 story house from my short stay, but based on past city directories, it had enough room for 2-3 families (or at least two couples and an additional single man – perhaps the latter simply renting a room?).

A 1942 postcard showing the Illinois Central Railroad shops in Paducah, Kentucky.

Local lumber yards often employed an architect to help customers with their plans – and many published their own catalogs of house plans, based on what was trending nationally. Bungalows were being built just about everywhere in America in the 1920s, and the two-door plan, as I stated before, would have been a familiar form to many people.

Aerial view showing the bungalow today (white arrow).

Did a Paducah lumber company produce the plan for 1308 Broadway? Or did the owner in 1922 find the house plan in a mail-order catalog? For now, this will remain a mystery.

The block where Hicks and Mildred and the other residents of 1308 Broadway lived has changed dramatically since the mid-20th century – and not for the better. Surface parking lots spread over former house parcels, and no residential air remains in the neighborhood, with the exception of 1308 Broadway and its late-19th century neighbor, 1310 Broadway. I’m grateful for small miracles, and that these two two dwellings still stand – it’s fitting that the duplex bungalow plays host to a steady stream of visitors – a role in keeping with its original purpose.

*In my brief research it appears that Mildred Yarbrough, nee Abbott, was living at 1308 Broadway in 1930, with J.D. Abbott and his wife Myrtle. J.D. was an welder at Illinois Central Railroad, while Mildred was a stenographer. Mildred apparently started working for the railroad while still in Mississippi – in the 1920 census, when she was 18, and still living at home with her parents (and a whole bunch of younger siblings), she was a clerk at the railroad. I couldn’t find a marriage certificate for she and Hicks, but in the 1940 census, they were no longer living at 1308 Broadway, and one of Mildred’s younger brothers was living with them. It doesn’t appear that Hicks and Mildred had any children.

** Duplex bungalows are sometimes also called “double bungalows,” which plays off of a very old floor plan and other house types – the double pen, double pile, etc.

***Of course, another explanation is that the canted front doors are a later modification, set into what was originally a three bay (window/door/window) facade, and the entry doors to the other units were on the side and rear of the house.  The doors themselves date from the mid-20th century, and the canted openings could also date from that time. This isn’t the explanation I would like…but it  may be correct.